Rebranding can be such an overwhelming process for businesses that many avoid it altogether due solely to the headaches it creates for their CMO and SEO departments.

Despite the issues you may have with your own SEO,however,rebranding can be an effective way to increase your long-term brand value.Even if your SEO rankings do suffer temporarily,this is still a worthwhile endeavor for many businesses.

Here are some tips to make sure that while you’re rebranding:

1.Try to keep the same domain name
Rbranding process due to the risk of losing organic search rankings.Brands that participate in mergers often phase-out their old trademarks and share an entirely new name.This obviously means they have to move their site to a new domain.If you must change your domain name, here are several things you can do to avoid having your rankings fall:

Try to preserve your original content:ven if you are setting up an entirely new domain and website,try to replicate your old content as best as possible.If the search engines have been crawling your website for a long time,you’ll have earned a lot of authority for your content and will notice a sharp drop in rankings if you don’t keep it on your new site.

Use redirects properly:once recreated your content,make sure the crawlers can easily access it. Start by creating a list of your old URLs and redirecting them to the new content pages.If you have never done a 303 redirect.

Keep Your Old Site Up for a Few Days:Your actions may still create confusion for the search engine crawlers even if you set up your redirects properly.It may take a few days for the search engines to realize they are visiting a site on your new IP address.

2.Make sure your contact information is up-to-date
Co-citations are very important for SEO,especially for local businesses.If you’re changing your physical location as part of your branding strategy,you need to update that information on your directory istings,your Google “My Business” page and all other off-site profiles.

3.Try to maintain the same URL structure
Preserving your URL structure isn’t that important if you’re using redirects properly.However,it can reduce the headaches involved if you’re trying to manually change internal links that you might otherwise forget to redirect.

4.Update your authorship
Authorship doesn’t have the same level of importance as it did when it was first introduced.despite any rumors to the contrary.Therefore,you need to make sure that your authorship is updated.Reach out to your contributors and ask them to update your website domain in their contributor links.This is very easy to do as long as you’re still in touch with your contributors.

5.Start promoting your new name
A substantial amount of organic search traffic comes from visitors searching for brand-name keywords. Unless your new name is a slight variation of your old brand,you are probably going to lose a large share of your brand-name traffic.Make sure you inform your existing customers and new contacts about your new company name,and update your business cards to reflect the name change.You’ll also want to make sure your employees get in the habit of introducing themselves under your new brand name as soon as possible,so that their new contacts know what company to search for.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy.His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

The world is open for local businesses; Even Google has warmly embraced local businesses,paving an easier path for them through Google+listings,reviews,citations,etc.However,managing all this is easier said than done.your data is accurate across all directories through selecting the right keywords for your business,things might become difficult for small local businesses who don’t have a budget to hire a full-time SEO expert.However,there is a solution in the form of five tools that can help you supercharge your local listings and SEO quickly and easily without the help of an expert:

1.Synup:fix your local citations
Nothing can spell disaster for local businesses more than inaccurate citations and outdated details.Imagine how dreadful it would be for a local business to have important details like address and phone numbers inaccurately recorded!To add to the tragedy,imagine new local directories fetching the same old data,multiplying wrong,outdated information in several local directories.

2.BluMenthals:choose the right business category
Believe it or not,there are innumerable categories of hotels and a myriad number of other categories such as diners,café,espresso bars,restaurants,bistro,etc.Finding a category which aptly suits your business is tough.On top of it,the local Search Ranking Factors study by Moz cites accurate categorization as an important ranking factor.That’s why BluMenthals helps you find the best category based on the keywords you choose.You type in your service,product,or business model keywords into this tool and it generates a list of best-match pre-set categories from Google’s category catalog.

3.WordStream: optimize your listing keywords
When you furnish your details in local directories,they ask for relevant business keywords to go along with your other details.These keywords help improve your search results.keywords and determine the best keywords that you can rank for.WordStream will show relative frequency,Google search volume and competition for the top 100 keywords,so you can pick and choose niche terms which are relevant but not very competitive to rank for.

4.Whitespark: build local listings
No local SEO tool list is ever complete without mentioning Whitespark.One of the biggest challenges for local SEO is to build citations.The Local Citation Finder shows up to 500 citation sources per key phrase,something that no other tool offers as yet.You can even monitor these citations to keep a watch on your own and your competitor’s listings.

5.Advice Local: monitor search rankings
If you are managing multiple locations,it would make sense to go for a comprehensive suit.The tool also helps you manage local listings on major GPS devices,navigation apps,and POI databases,so people can find your business easily.It also allows you to dig into and analyze your local SEO data,so you can fine-tune your SEO campaign.Though this tool caters to SEO agencies and marketers,local businesses with multiple outlets too can benefit from this comprehensive software suite.All the above-mentioned tools help you manage your listings and track your performance on search engines over time.From cleaning up your citations through to analyzing your SEO performance,you will need these tools every step along the way.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy.His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

According to a survey sent out to Twitter audience,majority of the respondents (70%) send keyword ranking reports to clients,while 30% don’t.Based on these results,keyword ranking reports are a relevant metric to send out to clients.But why don’t some SEO marketers send them?Let’s take a closer look.

Keyword Ranking Reports Are Important
Keyword ranking reports allow you to keep track of the progress of your keyword strategy and SEO campaigns.You can use this report to manage your keywords and identify what your high-ranking and low-ranking keywords are.You can then use this data to reinforce your campaigns on strong keywords and boost your strategy for low-ranking keywords.You can also see how your rankings change over time for your target keywords and modify your strategy accordingly.

Other Metrics to Focus On
These reports have such as not knowing if a keyword you rank for is actually sending you traffic,not being able to track for long-tail keywords,and changes in SERP features.Keyword rankings may be important to keep track of but this isn’t the only metric you should focus on.such as monitoring time on-page,tracking your site’s usability,and monitoring traffic by device,among others.So keep sending your clients those keyword ranking reports,but mix it up and send them other relevant metrics for a comprehensive view of your keyword strategy and SEO campaigns.

Source:searchenginejournal

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy.His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

One thing sustains startups and existing businesses.Withbusiness,sustainability is everything.Massive sales are awesome,but they have to be sustainable.New growth is great,but it has to be sustainable.

Come up with another business/startup maxim and you can couple the word sustainable to it as well.If you want long term success,you have to create something that is sustainable.But you can compete in a different space,local SEO.In fact,change the “can compete” to “must compete”and you have a more apt statement. Local SEO is not forgiving though.You have to set it up right in the beginning.Here is how you do it.

Listed on Google
Get your business listed locally on Google as soon as possible.Prepare to be amazed when you behold the power of Google for your business.Contrary to what you might think,they really want your business to be discovered.They do not exist solely for huge corporations.

Choose appropriate title tags
This is one of the easiest things you can do to make a big impact on your search rankings.When filling out titles on your web pages,makes sure you include localized SEO information.This piece of code is important.Remember,Google does not rank sites,they rank individual pages.

Listed in the right directory
They have a lot of great resources. You want to get listed in good,high quality online directories used by your industry.These directories help with your search ranking.Also,consider applying to Yahoo and Bing.

Take advantage of Google+
Make sure you set up a Google+ business page and maintain an active presence.Activity on Google+ pages are weighted differently than activity from other social media platforms.This probably has to a lot to do with the fact that Google+ is owned by Google.Reviews on your Google+ business page are a powerful local SEO one-two combo punch.

Location pages
Be sure to build geo-targeted location pages that target the top locations your business serves.Doing this will increase your rank for specific locations over time.On these pages be sure to add the actual location in the URL,in the title tag and be sure to use the city/town name a few times on the page itself.You can add as many location pages as you want,but it’s really best to build ones for your main target areas and focus solely on those.

Be mindful of NAP
NAP stands for name,address and phone number.Put this information somewhere on your homepage in a highly visible area (menu,header or footer).Check your mobile page;you will definitely want NAP there.Also,if you have just one location,make sure NAP is on every one of your pages.This will keep you right in front of your customer while they check out your online presence.They can reach out with a phone call at any time.Also,place a Google map on your page that allows people to navigate to your business from their location.They will do more than keep you viable and sustainable.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy.His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

Each year brings a series of changes to the world of SEO in ecommerce.Much has been made about the position of SEO and whether you still should be using Google to boost your website over alternatives like social media.

Here are the main ecommerce SEO trends that have emerged this yeartake advantage of.

1.Off-the-shelf SEO is improving
Previously,the only SEO product you used was one tailored to you.Anything else simply wasn’t good enough.But those off-the-shelf alternatives are getting better.An off-the-shelf package can include anything from apps to widgets to tools produced for a generalized market.These products require almost no input from you.No longer do you have to have any technical expertise.A good SEO strategy is accessible to every business.

2.Long-form content is integral to your content marketing strategy
Content marketing used to be the next big thing.Now,it’s not just the next big thing,it’s the current thing.But don’t stop there:Take Amazon,for example.One of the reasons why Amazon has stood out from other retailers is that it has been producing long-form content for years.You’ll notice that every single product page is jam-packed with information on features,flowery descriptions and specifications, along with at least five images.So,increase the amount of information you yourself have available,and allow your customers to choose what they pay attention to.

3.Sharing is caring
Social media is important because your shareability will have a direct impact on how much money you make.Even those that aren’t yet hitting a profit say that social media sharing will only become more important for ecommerce.

And this is happening all over social media-with every business in every industry.Facebook may be the old favorite,but Instagram and Snapchat are quickly catching up among younger-generation consumers.

4.Video content is king
Study after study has demonstrated how video content is outperforming practically every other piece of content.There’s still a place for a mix of content types,but video is the most effective.Shooting a video has also become more accessible.shoot some of your previous reviews using previous actors,tell a story showing your product in action or show some of what’s going on behind the scenes at your company.

5.Think about the importance of mobile optimization again
It has been some time since it was released.The intention was to penalize companies that didn’t produce mobile-friendly websites.Every year,in fact,Google has been making these penalties harsher.So,if you haven’t yet optimized for mobile,now is the time.But that isn’t something to do out of fear.Instead, recognize that mobile has the power to help you produce better content,superior functionality and an overall better experience to mobile users.

Last word be aware of the trends
It’s vital to keep up with the trends in ecommerce and SEO today.If you are unable to understand what’s going on around you,your competitors are always going to be way out ahead of you.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

That said,there is plenty to be gained by closely observing successful organizations.You’ll see high and low points in any company’s history,but you’ll also notice a pattern emerge within each business.Those who survived grew stronger than before by following their own pattern for success.Discovering your success pattern isn’t about using the latest technology or applying a growth-hacking strategy you saw promoted on the internet.Instead,it’s about leveraging additional resources to boost your business even in difficult times.I call those people “market boosters.”

Here’s how to find your strongest market boosters and connect with them to grow your business.

Market boosters
you can categorize your visitors and customers in three groups.First are your regular customers, who want your product or service to solve their problem. They have zero influence to help you grow your business. You must appreciate them and encourage them to stay with your business for long time.Second are your readers,visitors,regular followers and those who drop by from different sources.Third are your true market boosters.Others might call them influencers,though that tends to conjure images of next-level celbrities such as Bill Gates and Kim Kardashian.Your small-business market boosters have the tools, resources,networks and power to push your business to the top.

SEO boosters
You’ll acquire natural links,to be sure,but you also can get help from content lovers with the power to increase your traffic:bloggers.Begin by targeting bloggers in your niche and study which types of content they love writing about the most.Then,craft an epic piece of content and include a few of those common points in your article.Once you’ve published your content,and invite them to read your article. Because they’ve shown interest in similar works,it’s likely they’ll take a look.And when they see some of their points reflected in your work,they’re even more likely to create a backlink.Your published piece gives them credit for what they know and validates their perspective.

Content marketing boosters
you also should know that content marketing is a high-efficiency tactic to build your business.Here’s a smart move you absolutely can make:Leverage known content lovers and social media addicts to exponentially expand your reach.This strategy is very similar to building backlinks,but you rely on the powerful search tools embedded in Twitter and other social media platforms to help spread your message. These advanced features allow you to shortlist people who spend a great deal of time online tagging or hashtagging concepts that correlate to your business or strategic priorities.When you post across social media platforms,tag your market boosters.The secret is not to push for social shares.Instead,ask if they care to give their opinions.The magic unfolds the same way as it does with SEO boosters.
All in all,there are plenty of ways to leverage on the market booster concept and skyrocket your business.That’s growth hacking:implementing unconventional,creative-marketing strategies that speed up your growth process.Optimizing your reach with market boosters,though,is like a “secret sauce” that can add significant value to your growth-marketing activities.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

When I first started in online marketing I wish I would have known about ppc and Facebook Ads.The benefits of using Facebook ads are mind blowing.You no longer need to wait to get traffic from SEO.You no longer need to wait months to see if your business is successful.You can find all of that out with Facebook.If there’s any reason why experts don’t talk about this–it’s for one reason.Competition.The more people on the Facebook Ad Platform.The more it will cost to get your message into the world.I personally don’t care about competition.So I’ll be unpacking the reasons you should be using thi platform.

*Testing
People tend to forget that you are supposed to test first with any type of campaign.This definitely includes Facebook Ads. Setting up your ads isn’t a one-time deal.If you want to get the most out of your ad you need to split test.Test out your ads to see which one converts better.Change the picture to see.if it will generate you more clicks.Change the ad copy to see if it’s enticing enough to look further into.Most importantly–test to see if you are even targeting the right customer.Facebook is a perfect way to test to see if your business will become a success.Smart marketers do this all the time.They will test the market before they make the product to see if it’s what the people want.

Scaling
This section just might be my favorite section.If you have the right business model which allows you to automate a lot of your work or allows you to scale–then Facebook Advertising is the perfect place for you.If you have an ad or multiple ads that are working and making you really good money,take whatever you have earned and dump it all back into your ads and you can make even more money.

Quick Start
You could have launched your business by then and started making money.Facebook ads allows you to do that.You can literally set up a funnel and test and before you know it,you are in business.

Measurable ROI
Use that to your advantage.You can’t grow what you can’t measure.Use ppc (fb ads specifically) and email marketing together to make your business thrive.For email marketing you only have to spend once to get their contact information.You no longer have to spend money to acquire that customer.

Targeting features
Over the years Facebook has amassed large amount of data from you.They know where you live,where you work,what you like,what you don’t like,and that’s all information you’ve given them.Businesses can target you based on location,age,gender,demographics,interests and behaviors.

Re-marketing
It’s been proven time and time again that you can increase your conversions with re-marketing.People won’t buy your product the first time.It takes several interactions before they purchase from you. That’s why if you don’t use re-marketing–you will miss out on a lot of money and customers.

Custom audiences
This is another feature I love about Facebook Ads.If you are launching a new business or you have something amazing to share and you want it to get picked up by news outlets you can easily set up a custom audience and get the right people to see you If you want to get noticed by your boss–set up a custom audience.

Conclusion
Waiting for traffic to come in will be the death of your business.Take control of how you get traffic and when you get it.Take control of who gets targeted as a lead so you can grow your business effectively and measurably.

Source:entrepreneur

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

Micro-moments are snippets of time in which a person wants to learn,find,do,or buy something immediately during their busy day.They grab their smartphone and tap out that need or query into a search engine or app.The micro-moment is that split-second when a person decides to research—and ideally,satisfy—an immediate need.The infographic below shares just a few stats showing exactly how dependent consumers are on their phones.

Research and Discovery
While it might sound like a mere buzzword,it is so much more,as the micro-moment has fast become an essential entry to the purchase path.Mobile searches are conducted on-the-go and even in-store,and such spontaneous activity does not favor the tried-and-true brand,but favors discovery.“We are open to help with decisions we need to make along a journey to accomplish something,said Google’s director of performance marketing.It is very clear that being ready when consumers go fishing for answers pays off.

Local,Voice,and the Micro-Moment
To get ready for mobile,a website must be optimized for mobile.It doesn’t automatically happen without you.Evaluate thoroughly,as roadblocks such as pinch-and-expand can get in the way of consideration and click-through.The mobile site must present the essentials of location,map,hours,a click-to-call option,and deliver it fast.Because mobile has trained consumers to get what they want right away,if they don’t get it they will move on.As Google tells us,in the past users were going online,while today now they are living online.People are truly interacting with the world in a different way.With speech-to-text inputs,they often sound like questions one might ask a human being.Improvements in voice search and natural language are leading to a dramatic increase in voice queries.When people use voice search they become more natural.

From Intent to Instant Gratification
On an ultra local basis,let’s observe a couple of friends planning to grab a pizza on a night out.A quick smart phone search for“pizza restaurant near me”yields several results.Clicking through to the top listing they see a logo and pictures,plus multiple buttons offering click-to-call,menu,location and “Like” options,plus third-party“Order online now”button.Making their choice,within minutes the friends were debating pizza toppings and beverages at their table.Mobile-wise,that little pizza parlor had it going on! Not only did its site load fast,but it also showed the friends everything they wanted to know with a minimum of clicks.It satisfied an immediate need—sustenance—immediately,and capitalized upon that micro-moment by being top in search,providing relevant information and making the interaction frictionless.

Source:searchenginejournal

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

One of the biggest indicators of entrepreneurial validity these days is the launch of a website;your business isn’t considered truly established until it has one.Accordingly,a website is an important milestone for charting your startup plan,and one of the most rewarding achievements in that process as a whole.

There are still some major hurdles you’ll have to face.

1.Finding the minimum viable product
Naturally,when you design and develop a website for your brand,you’ll want everything to be perfect.You have a bold vision for the future of your brand that you’re passionate and excited about,and you want your website to reflect that vision.As you develop your site, you’ll be tempted to add in new features and sections,and to go over old sections with new content,new material and additional functionality.

2.Design and layout choices
Your design and layout choices will be important factors for your website’s success;they’ll help your visitors form their first impressions,motivate them to take action and possibly determine whether or not they’ll ever come back for more.

3.On-site copy
Your on-site copy presents a handful of different hurdles.You’ll have to choose the right titles for your pages,whether you follow basic conventions like “Contact” and “About” pages,or opt for something more creative.You’ll also be writing all the material on your website,from the taglines on your home page to the paragraphs on your other internal pages.

4.Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important online marketing strategies of the modern era.It’s relatively inexpensive,and results in permanent increases in your online brand equity,and your website’s visibility and ability to be found online.

5.Calls-to-action
The calls-to-action throughout your site will be responsible for converting your incoming visitors into full-fledged customers.These can take the form of short,word-based callouts at the end of your blog posts,buttons driving people to purchase individual items or a form field on a contact page that your users need to fill out.

6.Hosting
Though it may not seem like a major decision at the time,your choice in hosting provider can have a massive impact on the eventual functionality of your site.

7.Attracting Base momentum
Remember that launching is the end of one process,but the beginning of a new one.Once you’ve launched,you’ll need to build initial momentum,in the form of traffic to your site.This,by necessity, likely includes content marketing and other online marketing or advertising strategies.You’ll always have the ability to make adjustments after going live.

Source:entrepreneur.com

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.

Google Home,Google’s latest digital assistant,is part of a broader market experiment in voice-only search.
In desktop search,Google also returns a set of traditional organic results,and,in some cases,ads,news results,Knowledge Panels,and other features.Google Home is a single-result search device,and featured snippets were designed for exactly this purpose.

“How many people have walked on the moon?”
So,the answer is extracted from Wikipedia and presented as a featured snippet.It’s interesting to note that the answer (twelve) is pulled out of the paragraph and presented on its own…”Twelve” Then,it moves on to attribution:”According to Wikipedia..Finally,the device reads the snippet,but only the first sentence in this case.

“Who has walked on the moon?”
This question returns a more typical,paragraph-based featured snippet..In this case,we get attribution first (“According to Universe Today..”),followed by the full snippet.Even though this snippet is fairly long,Google Home chooses to read the full contents.

“How do I get to the moon?”
Hey,I’d like to be one of those people—how do I get in on this whole moon thing?I’m feeling starved for glory.

Here,Google returns a list-basedformat.Google Home then proceeds through the steps,but some are truncated.Step 1,for example,becomes simply:”Assemble the Pieces.”We’re left a bit unclear what we’re assembling the pieces of (the moon?). Google also reads the odd syntax (“1. Step 1.”)verbatim,but this is more of a problem with the featured snippet algorithm than Google Home itself.

“List all the moons.”
“Clearly,there’s a length limit to the spoken answer,but that limit isn’t entirely consistent and seems to depend on the format of the answer.

“What kind of cheese is the moon made of?”
This one’s just for fun.We all know what kind of cheese the moon is made of…

“List of ISS missions.”
Interestingly,this same search returns no results on Google Home.I tried a handful of tabular featured snippets,and either they returned no results or Google substituted a paragraph-based snippet.

“What is Page Authority?”
we’re not all in the moon business.While featured snippets are naturally focused on informational queries,questions are relevant to many aspects of our business and even our branded properties.

Google Home needs a little work on its pronunciation,but we do get back the full snippet and are even rewarded with”According to Moz…”and a bit of a brand boost.

“Where do we go from here?”
The direct translation of featured snippets into voice answers means that Google Home does present clear search marketing opportunities.At the moment,though,it’s very difficult to measure the extent or the impact of those opportunities.For now,it’s worth exploring ranking for voice if only because winning featured snippets also positions you well in desktop and mobile search. As voice evolves,we can expect to see more interplay between devices, where a voice search saves a link in an app (Amazon Echo’s app already does this with Bing searches)or opens a page directly on a linked device.

Source:moz.com

Peter Zmijewski is the founder and CEO at KeywordSpy. His expert knowledge on Internet Marketing practices and techniques has earned him the title “Internet Marketing Guru“ He is also an innovator, investor and entrepreneur widely recognized by the top players in the industry.